Don’t ask me how this happened, but I’ve been watching a lot of zombie movies lately.

When I’m not watching movies or a TV series for an article I’m writing, my tastes in viewing are offbeat, but even I wasn’t prepared to watch so many zombie movies.

The other day, I watched “Zombies of Mora Tau,” a low-budget flick from 1957 whose only well-known star was Allison Hayes of “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman” fame.

Not long ago, I wrote about a pair of zombie movies, including “King of the Zombies,” from 1941, that basically told the same story as “Zombies of Mora Tau” – zombies arise on a remote island. (The difference was that in the two earlier films, a scientist was creating an army of zombies for the Nazis.)

Watching those old films made me think of later zombie/walking dead films, notably George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” from 1968 and “Dawn of the Dead” in 1978. Both genuinely great films.

But what I got to thinking was when zombies got fast. Make no mistake, zombies are still slow, shambling creatures in some films and TV series, notably “The Walking Dead.”

The big change from walkers to runners came in 2002, of course, with director Danny Boyle’s “28 Days Later.” In the film, the zombies could run – run fast! – and were probably considered a bigger threat than the paunchy, stumbling and mostly old white guys from earlier films.

If you haven’t seen “Dawn of the Dead” and “28 Days Later,” I urge you to do so.

As for the earlier films … well, you don’t have to rush to see them. The zombies are in no hurry. In fact, they won’ be going anywhere.